I’ve had this recipe printed out on a piece of computer paper for, well, about 8 years. It was given to me, along with a full meal that included the dish, when my youngest was born. I’ve referred to it many times, so it’s covered in splashes and splatters, but the worse part is that one of my kids used it to make a Sharpie work of art on the back that almost obliterated the instructions.

Well, see for yourself…

And now, here I sit, squinting at the page, in an effort to save the recipe for my own use…and your benefit!

The best thing I ever learned on the internet was this: If your recipe calls for chopped or shredded chicken, head to Publix and grab a rotisserie chicken. Original flavor works best, but none of them are so flavorful that they’ll ruin a recipe, especially since you’re just going to discard the skin. So grab a rotisserie chicken, pull back the skin, get all the meat off, and chop it up. Easy peasy.

Here are the ingredients:

I’m all about that easy-peasy-ness, so I also use pre-cooked, microwaveable rice and frozen pre-chopped onions in this recipe. Pre-ANYTHING always speeds up a busy weeknight dinner. If you’re not fond of that, go ahead and chop a fresh onion and cook a box of uncooked wild rice (Far East is a good brand) and it will be fine. But if you’re lazy efficient like me, follow along. (Because this Uncle Ben’s rice is already pre-cooked, I use two packages. If you’re using uncooked rice, one package is fine. The volume increases when you cook it, after all.)

So the first step is to cook the rice according to package directions. Bear with me, because this is a bit complicated – tear open the package where indicated about 2 inches, and microwave for 90 seconds. Got it? Good. Now repeat with the other bag of rice.

Next, cook the onions (no need to thaw first) in the butter until the onions are transparent.

Go on, sniff your computer screen. You know you want to.

Anyway, once the onions are transparent, add in the flour. Cook for one minute while stirring, then slowly add the half and half and the chicken broth. Cook all of that until thickened, still stirring. Seriously, stirring is the hardest part of this dish. Except maybe waiting for it to cook. Next, add the salt and pepper, and now you have this:

Now just dump in the chicken, rice, and parsley. (Dump carefully so you don’t have as much of a mess to clean up.) Stir to combine.

Put that whole shebang into a lightly-greased, 13″ x 9″ in casserole dish. Throw it in a 425-degree oven for 30 minutes or until it starts to bubble.

Check out all that deliciousness. See that burned stuff along the edges up there? That’s my husband’s favorite part.

I’m finally coming out of my “summer is here” denial phase. It followed my “I refuse to help with any more homework” attitude that coated the last three weeks of school. But now that the kids are home, I’m looking at more fun things to do with them.

Of course, being summer, baseball season is also on us, which means us girls get a lot of time together at home. So we’ve been making it fun – last night the girls gave me a makeover (!), and tonight we made dinner together. Since my daughters are 7 and 9, I still like to keep it pretty simple. And pizzadillas was something I knew they’d eat and be fairly safe cooking, too.

For nights like this, the whole idea is to keep things simple by following a few rules:

only a few ingredients

limited cookware

easy cleanup

the ability for kids to participate

So we fired up (so to speak) the quesadilla maker and pulled out the following ingredients: soft flour tortilla shells, pizza sauce, mozzarella cheese, and pepperoni slices. Don’t have a quesadilla maker? A skillet would do, but these are cheap and easy, so I highly recommend one. The one I have is made by Hamilton Beach and can be found here.

Once the quesadilla maker was hot, we opened it and put on the bottom tortilla shell. The girls took turns spreading pizza sauce on the shell. They REALLY wanted to use my pastry brush, but the back of a spoon would work just fine.

Next, we sprinkled mozzarella cheese over the sauce. Normally I like to shred my own cheese, but I had picked up this bag on sale with a coupon, so pre-shredded it is. The kids really can’t tell the difference anyway, but you might want to shred your own ahead of time to avoid the fillers they add to those bags of shredded cheese. Whatever floats your boat.

Then the pepperoni slices go on top of that. They made the first one so nice and even, didn’t they? The second one ended up being a smiley face. Sometimes having fun is much more important than an even distribution of processed meat slices! If your kids are more adventurous than mine, you might try other “toppings”, like ham and pineapple, onions and peppers, or other meat. For us, pepperoni is stretching things, but I find that the pride of cooking their own dinner makes them eat things they’re iffy about at other times.

Oh, and watch out, because you might find that you have a couple of nibblers attacking the pepperoni when you turn your back!

The final touch is one last tortilla, then down goes the lid! I didn’t really time it but I think it took about 5-6 minutes to cook. I fidget in the kitchen, so I ended up checking it repeatedly, which in hindsight probably made it take longer. I just hate it when I burn things, because everyone makes fun of me. (I’m still getting flack from my son for setting the Christmas potatoes on fire four-and-a-half years ago.)

Back in April, I joined a local running group that my soon-to-be friend Michelle started on Meetup.com. Most of the new Meetup groups I get alerted to are in Orlando, but this one was local…I mean REALLY local. I could run to the meeting point (but I don’t). I didn’t know any of the group when we started, but many of them I’m happy to count among my friends now.

Jessica is my competition – we’re usually neck in neck. (But today she beat me, literally, by a mile.)

Jacqueline is my alter-ego…she has three kids, just like me, and they run her in every direction.

Michelle is the organizer, and she shows up to put out cones and water even if she isn’t going to run. She’s the group mom. She also runs completely barefoot and is the source for many comments from other runners on the street.

Glenn is the one I never seem to see. Once he starts, I won’t catch a glimpse of him until after he’s doubled-back. Oh wait, put Giles and Charlie in this group too.

The two Karens never show up on the same day, but they’re both great runners and super fun.

Tam usually does the longest run, finishes near the front of the pack, then goes BACK out to find the last person and keep them company. So he does a couple of extra miles most days.

But in addition to the people I actually KNOW, there are the people that I FEEL like I know, because we see them every weekend. We run on Saturdays and Sundays, so I see these people so often I feel like I know them. And possibly because we live in Florida, in an older county, there’s a variety of characters that I swear one day I’m going to hand out party invitations too. Even though I don’t know their names.

The Bipolar: For example, there’s one man, probably in his 60s, who bikes for hours both days each weekend. He knows and recognizes each of us, and oddly, half of the time he sees us, he tells us to stop running, and the other half of the time he tells us to keep pushing on.

The Couple Who Plays Together, Stays Together: Then there’s a couple, maybe late 60s or even 70s, who go out on Saturdays with their dog. The man runs a 7-and-a-half minute mile with his stumpy-legged little dog on a leash. (I don’t know how the dog keeps up!) And his wife follows them on her adult-sized tricycle.

Yesterday was a new twist though – we met another lady coming the other direction, also on a full-sized trike. It was a bit of a sidewalk traffic jam.

The Zumba Lady: I’ve never seen her in my local classes, so I assume she goes to a different gym, but one lady is always wearing Zumbawear whenever she’s out jogging. Hey, whatever works. Personally, until Zumba starts using dri-weave, I’ll stick to race tees!

Happy: That’s her name – she’s a lady that goes to the church we used to be members of. She’s the only 60-year-old I know with the body of a 25-year-old. She’s a power walker, and she always says hi, but half the time she doesn’t recognize me (I assume because I’m hiding behind my awesome runner sunglasses.) By the time I see her again, after we’ve both turned around and headed back the way we came, she’s usually figured it out.

Mr. and Mrs. Hardcore: Two of the only people who can’t be bothered to say hello to anyone else…IMO they take themselves way too seriously. Young couple, very focused on their run. VERY. FOCUSED.

The Bikers: This is a group of roadie cyclists out every Saturday morning in their logo-adorned jerseys. I don’t know when they start, but I don’t usually see them until I’m at least 4 miles in. Depending on how hot it is, I’ve thought about flashing them to see if I can make them all crash. Don’t judge me – by this point I’m nearly depleted of sweat, glycogen, and sanity…it’s a good sign that I’m thinking at all.

I really like that there’s a sense of community with all the runners, walkers, and cyclists out on the sidewalks every weekend morning. I find that it’s one of the things I actually look forward to each Saturday and Sunday!

Then over the next two weeks I gained them back, along with 2 more. Boo!

I have all the motivation to exercise that I need. What I don’t have is the commitment to cook eggs for breakfast instead of having a LARGE bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Or the willpower to stay away from chocolate Easter bunnies.

Three weeks ago, I did have all that. Why? Because I’m an information freak. I was logging all of my calories to My Fitness Pal just like I should. I was saving all of my workouts to Fitocracy so I could “level up” and get props from complete strangers. All of my runs were going into Nike+ so I could see where I ranked in mileage among my friends. (#3 for March!) I love logging and tracking all of this information.

Here’s what the “health” folder on my iPhone looks like. And I use all of these regularly.

The problem was, my friend Tiffany’s Facebook stream looks like this:

Lost 3 pounds this week

Burned 696 calories in my Zumba class

Lost 2 more pounds

Down an inch in my waist

Killed 1354 calories at Jani’s master Zumba class

etc

Blah. How does she know how many calories she burns? I estimate 600 for every one-hour Zumba class but I don’t know how accurate that is. And I sure don’t trust the calorie readout on my treadmill. So I asked her – to appease my inner information-junkie. And she told me she uses a Body Bugg. Well, I guess they are now Body Media instead of Body Bugg, but you’ll hear both. This morning she sends me a coupon code for 20% off! So I ordered one. (Click here if you want one, too. I’ll get a little kickback that maybe I can use to advertise my classes or buy some more whey protein or…)

Here’s what the little “bugger” (get it?) looks like – it’s a white armband that you can see in the lower left corner of the image just to your right. You’ve probably seen them on Jillian Michaels or the Biggest Loser competitors. By the time I added in shipping and sales tax, it was almost back to the original price, but I’m still excited about it coming shortly in the mail.

So if you drive through my hometown and see someone running with their iPhone on one arm and a Bodymedia Link on the other, that’s probably me. Tracking mileage via my right arm and calories via my left arm. It’s an addiction.

What about you? Are you a technology addict – do you love gadgets like this? Are you an information freak, or do you do better just applying the tenets of clean eating and regular exercise without tracking everything to the nano-calorie level? (Yes, I just made that up.) Let me know below…I’m curious.

I hope you and your family had a wonderful Easter yesterday!!! The kids and I spent 5 days of Spring Break in South Carolina visiting my parents. On Saturday we made Empty Tomb Rolls, read the Easter story from the gospel of Luke, and went to services at our church. Sunday we hunted eggs, ate pancakes, and then spent the day with my in-laws and extended family down south. (Which just means further south down in Florida…there’s not a lot of the country further south than us!)

The weekend was wonderful, and it was great to see everyone. But I definitely had to share these recipes and pictures with you. I found both of them on Pinterest (follow me by clicking here) and I’ve attribute the recipes with links to the originals below each one. The photos are my own, thanks to the awesome Canon T4i that my husband got for me for Christmas.

Empty Tomb Rolls

Not only are these super tasty, they tell the Easter story so well. When you cook the rolls, the marshmallow inside melts away, leaving a hole inside – just like Jesus left the tomb empty after he rose from the dead. Pete read the Easter story from Luke to the kids while the oven pre-heated, then we dipped the marshmallows (Jesus) in butter and cinnamon (linen cloth), sealed them into the crescent rolls (the tomb) and baked them.

Ingredients

1 can jumbo refrigerated crescent rolls

1/4 cup sugar

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

8 large marshmallows (not the new jumbo ones!)

1/4 cup butter

Pam cooking spray

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Prepare a muffin pan by spraying eight of the compartments with Pam cooking spray.

Mix the sugar and cinnamon in one small bowl, and melt the butter in another small bowl in the microwave.

Take a marshmallow on a fork, roll it briefly in the melted butter, then coat with the cinnamon and sugar mixture. Place it on the large end of the crescent roll, and roll the dough and the marshmallow together toward the small point of the roll. Carefully pinch all edges closed to seal them, so that the marshmallow doesn’t leak out while they cook!

Dip just the top of each roll back in the butter and again in the cinnamon and sugar topping, and place (sugar-side up) into the prepared muffin pan.

Bake at 375 degrees for 13 minutes. Allow to cool for 5 minutes before eating.

Bunny Bum Pancakes

The original pin called these “bunny butts”, but since my kids find potty humor so fascinating, I thought I’d make it a little safer and call them Bunny Bum pancakes. This one really doesn’t require a recipe – just your favorite pancake mix, a can of Ready Whip, fresh sliced strawberries, and chocolate chips. Since there are 5 in our family, I made 5 large round pancakes and 10 smaller oval ones. Then I arranged as shown in the picture, putting a strawberry slice in the middle of each “foot” pancake, and three white chocolate chips for the toes. (Milk chocolate is fine; I just had the white ones already open in my pantry). Just before serving, I made the bunnies’ tails by adding a dollop of Ready Whip onto the “bum” pancake, and served with syrup. And since it was Easter, we had some scrambled eggs to go along with it. (Gotta offset those carbs with a little protein, you know!)

This one originally came from The Chicken Cook (click here for the original post). She provides beautiful step-by-step photos. Personally, my kids were way too anxious for breakfast for me to get a shot of anything but the finished product. And I burned one pancake while trying to take these. Oh well!

I think both of these will be new Easter traditions for our family. What are some of your Easter holiday traditions? Share in the comments below!

OMG, I hate beets. I’ve tried a number of different “Even if you don’t like beets…” recipes for cooking them, and each one was a waste of whatever those evil little red tubers cost me.

Until today. I wanted to try a new juice recipe, so I decided to give these beets one.more.try. And it turns out to be something I can live with…and don’t even have to hold my nose. Yay me. Yay for beets.

Beet, Carrot, and Apple Juice Recipe

2 beets

2 carrots

1 apple, quartered and cored

1″ ginger

Juice all ingredients together. Drink. Savor…or at least tolerate. Beets are good for you!

I totally skipped over this on Father’s Day, but I wanted to share what the kids and I made for Pete. Found on Pinterest, of course. The original is over at Two Girlz Stuff but it’s nothing more than a picture. Still, it was enough to go on!

Nope, I don’t look like that yet. But I had to put some kind of photo into the post, ya know.

I just realized I haven’t posted an update on my running since my marathon obsession post back in the first part of the year. It’s not because it was short-lived; in fact, I’m up to 6 miles on my weekend long runs, and that includes having to take a 3-week break in April when I tore a muscle in my left calf.

That means I’m almost halfway to a half-marathon…which I’m scheduled to run in November. A couple of months ago, I signed up for the Epcot Wine and Dine half marathon at Disney World. And I signed up for a series of shorter races, mostly 5k distances, over the next year. The first one is in just a week and a half.

I have discovered that I love running. Once I got past the side-cramp, can’t breathe phase, my body started to adjust and I could feel it working my muscles and not just giving me pseudo-heart attacks. I don’t have a very fast pace yet, so a nice 5-mile run takes me about an hour. That’s a blissful hour with no husband, no kids, no customers, no laundry, no errands…in fact, there’s nothing but me, my iPod, the road, and my thoughts. Running is “me time” at its best.

I’ve happily also figured out (mostly) how to avoid exertion headaches. I’ve found that as I exercise more, I get the headaches less-often, even as I add time and/or mileage to a workout. It used to be that I got a headache after every 2-mile run, as well as after every Zumba class. If you’ve ever experienced exertion headaches, you know how frustrating they are. You feel like you have to choose between exercising and feeling good. Those shouldn’t be mutually exclusive!

Here are the things I do that I believe help prevent exertion headaches:

Stay hydrated – I used to run on a completely empty stomach. Now I make sure I have a small glass of water before a run, and I stop twice on my 5- and 6-mile runs to rehydrate. After my run, I try to immediately have an 8-oz glass of water.

Fuel up – To avoid running on an empty stomach, even early in the morning, I’ve started setting my alarm for 3:30am (the night before a long run) to eat half of a banana. It should be digested by my 6:30 run, but helps me have fuel for burning.

Breathe – When running, I try to stay aerobic as much as possible. When teaching a Zumba class, I really focus on breathing well between songs. It’s hard to think about the routine and breathing at the same time, but between songs it’s easy.

Caffeine – I’m addicted, but just to a little amount. I need one cup of coffee in the mornings to avoid a caffeine-withdrawal headache. If I run first thing, I’ll often forget the coffee because I’m drinking water to slake my thirst and fixing a post-workout smoothie. I have to make sure I get the coffee in me, though, to avoid the double effect of caffeine withdrawal and exertion.

NSAIDs – If I am going through a phase where I get exertion headaches more often, I’ll take an NSAID pain reliever right before or right after my run, depending on the length. If I wait until the headache starts, it won’t do much good – but if I can prevent it from beginning, all is well. So either one Rx-strength pill that I have, or 200mg of Advil. (DO NOT TAKE THIS AS MEDICAL ADVICE! THIS IS JUST MY OWN EXPERIENCE!) I only do this on occasional long runs now; while I used to need them for shorter runs, I don’t seem to anymore.

Healthy Eating – Throughout the rest of the day, I watch what I eat to avoid the other headache triggers I know affect me, such as MSG and sodium nitrates. Those are in lots of processed snack foods and meats, so I avoid most of those…and the by-product is that I make healthier food choices overall.

Hopefully if you’re a runner or other fitness enthusiast, you don’t suffer from those and this entire post seems foreign to you. But if my experiences can help someone, all the better. Best of luck in your own workouts!

PS – Nike+ says I’m up to 47 runs and 96 total miles. There are a couple of runs not in there because I was trying out other running apps on my iPhone, but they were short runs so it’s close. Feels good.

I freaking HATE beans. With all of my heart, mind, soul, and body. The smell makes me gag, even. If I go out for Mexican, I always ask for a double-order of rice instead of beans. (Refried beans are the worst…they look like someone already digested them for you. Ew.)

However….

In a fit of bravery one night, and because a friend really encouraged me to do so, I had a little taste of the charro beans that came with my meal every time I visited Lupe Tortilla’s in Houston. To my surprise, not only were the edible, they were actually good! Just goes to show you that a bunch of bacon can fix just about anything…even frijoles al charra.

I also have to share my gratitude with someone who guys by DiBs over at Texas Monthly, who unknowingly blessed us by posting this recipe online. To my dear Lupe, please know that I’d come to your restaurant instead of making them at home if you’d only open up a branch in central Florida, but for now I’m cooking away at this secret recipe in my kitchen!

Charro Beans simmering on the stove

Recipe

4 slices bacon

2 jalapenos, seeded and diced

1 small onion, diced

2 16-oz cans pinto beans

1 large tomato, diced

2 teaspoons chopped cilantro

In a medium saucepan, warm beans and the juice from the can. Meanwhile, in a small frying pan, saute bacon, jalapeno and onion until well browned. Remove bacon from pan and cool on paper towels; add bacon grease, jalapeno, and onion to beans. Add tomatoes. Once bacon is cool enough to touch, break into small pieces and add to beans. Bring to a boil, then add cilantro. Lower heat and simmer for 15 minutes.

When we lived in Texas, our favorite restaurant BY FAR was Lupe Tortilla’s. It’s a fun family-friendly restaurant with good margaritas and great Tex-Mex food. Signs outside tell customers to expect a wait – if you are in a hurry you are encouraged to come back another time. The wait was always worth it, though, and each location has a children’s play area with sand and toys…conveniently located next to the outdoor bar. 🙂

Houston locals know not to bother with a menu. The regular food is good, but if you know the ropes, you order fajitas grandioso for two without bothering to look at the menu. (Heck, I even ordered them once when I dined alone, while traveling back to deal with bad renters in the house we still had there.) Honestly, these are the best fajitas you will ever eat. You can get chicken and/or beef in the restaurant, but beef is my favorite.

This is skirt steak. No, you may not substitute flank steak. They are not the same!

So God Bless Texas, and “Scott”, who posted the fajitas grandioso recipe over at Tastebook. I’ve made it several times now and I have to say, it’s REALLY close. I think the only reason it’s not the same is that my cast iron skillet isn’t very seasoned yet. Take note: cooking these fajitas on cast iron is a MUST. Any other cookware simply.will.not.do.

This is a good example of too much meat for the marinade. The marinade should mostly cover the meat.

The first step is the marinade. Scott’s recipe calls for marinade for 2 pounds of skirt steak; IMO this is enough for only about 1.5 pounds. You need to have enough marinade for the meat to settled into; otherwise the steak won’t be tender enough. It’s the citric acid in the lime juice that breaks down the meat, tenderizing it in the process, so you want enough marinade for the steak to sit in. It’s not just about the flavor.

Use real cast iron. The more seasoned the pot, the better the flavor.

After that, you want to grill the steak on medium-high heat. If the temperatures is too high, the outside of the meat will get tough before the inside is cooked. And if it’s too low, there won’t be enough searing on the outside to really develop the flavor. The other thing I do differently is to cook the meat for awhile, then slice it against the grain and return it to the skillet to finish cooking. I think the flavor develops better this way.

Make the marinade by combining the garlic, 1/3 c. vegetable oil, tequila, salt, lime juice, and cumin in a large glass or Pyrex bowl. Cut the steak into 5-6 inch sections, or whatever will fit in your skillet. Place steak in marinade and make sure the marinade covers the meat as thoroughly as possible. Marinade for a minimum of 2 hours; I usually let it sit in the marinade, in the refrigerator, overnight.

Heat your cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat. When it’s hot, place the skirt steak pieces on the skillet and cook until medium-rare, about 10 minutes on each side. The meat should start to develop a slight “crust” on the outside. Remove meat, slice against the grain into strips, and return to pan to finish cooking. At this point, add the green onions (full length or cut in half; not chopped) as well and let them cook in the grease from the meat, along with the remaining 2 TS vegetable oil.

(You can also cook onions and peppers in the grease; I don’t like these on my fajitas so I leave them out.)